Desperate appeals for government to step in to ensure the future of the North-east's first children's hospice have been made to the House of Commons by a Teesside MP.

The pleas came amid mounting fears that the Butterwick Hospice in Stockton faces a potentially crippling £150,000 hole from next spring.

The hospice provides care for about 80 seriously or terminally ill children a year and for the last few years has been bolstered by a National Lottery grant.

However, that money runs out in March and despite strenuous efforts, managers have so far been unable to replace it.

The "severe consequences" of the cash crisis were spelled out to the Commons by Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland's Labour MP Ashok Kumar.

"Unless funding is replaced, there is a real threat Butterwick frontline services will have to be cut," said Dr Kumar.

And he predicted that would affect families across the North-east.

He feared cuts at Butterwick would also affect the NHS because it would have to replace - and pay for - specialist services currently provided by the hospice.

One solution suggested by Dr Kumar would be to put children's hospices on the same financial footing as those for adults. Adult hospices typically receive 35pc of their funding from the NHS - but children's hospices get only 5pc.

The MP urged ministers to look sympathetically at that issue and offered to bring a delegation to Whitehall to explain the case in detail.

"We are talking about a lot of money," admitted Dr Kumar. "But it can be seen as a challenge or target."